Just A Man
by Renshuusei01
Summary: Kenny through the years. Inspired by chapter 69. Most sentences are from there but it differs. Also posted as a new chapter for Kenuri Drabbles


I never thought that there would be someone stronger than I was out there. So that was a 'titan'. Who knew they would be real and inside the wall too...

.o.

"Uri!...Stay right where you are!"

The brunette of the two young men shouted as he aimed his riffle at me and I grunted.

"Wait Rod!"

The blonde one, the 'titan' replied as he raised his one hand and kept the other one in the titan's nape, squeezing the titan's fist tighter around my body.

"The one who leaked information is one of the council and in order to find out who it is, I will make him talk."

The brunette, Rod, got ready to pull the trigger.

"That..."

I slowly took out a knife from my sleeve as I saw Uri's blue eyes staring at me with a strange glow.

"...won't work, Rod."

I didn't know what but there was something in those eyes...

They were full of knowledge, almost ancient...there was something shining in them...something...godly...

...as if he knew everything about me...

"He is a descendant of the Ackerman Clan and if that's so, he'd have a reason to point his blade at me."

My eyes widened slightly but I still threw my knife instinctly as soon as it settled fully in my palm.

"URİ!"

The knife pierced Uri's left wrist which he had raised in front of his face and stopped just before its edge touched his neck.

And I started to shout.

"Damn it! You are the king, right? Overlook this just once! Come on! Lemme go! Please! Gimme another chance! I promise I will attack you when you are asleep next time!"

.o.

I had become so weak in front of an enemy that was so much stronger than I was. I mean, it was the first time that someone else was actually going to squash me like a bug. Violence was all I had and I had lost it all then.

But now that I think about it, I guess I didn't really have a legit reason to hate the whole family.

.o.

The titan's hand slowly released me.

"N-no...Uri!"

Rod shouted again as he looked at me with fear and I pulled out a small pistol slowly though I was sure that Uri wouldn't even feel it after that knife.

"W-what are you doing!? That's an Ackerman in front of you! We can't erase his memories! The only way is to kill him!"

Rod kept shouting, not daring to take a step from where he was as his riffle visibly trembled in his grasp and Uri slowly walked towards me while slowly rubbing his left wrist.

Those blue orbs were, once again turned to me and I was unable to look away, unable to move away as I sat on the ground and he walked closer and closer. I raised my pistol in front of me, debating wheter to shoot or not mentally. What good would it do anyway? And what would he do to me if he didn't die?

Uri stopped a few feet away from me and lowered his head then he fell on the ground as if his knees gave out.

"If we think about what our family did to his,...the rage he has is pretty understandable."

I heard him muttering, seemingly more to himself than Rod or me. He raised his eyes again, to face me. I could see another glow then...Hope?...Yearn? I didn't know then and I would never know no matter how much time passed or how many times I thought about that day.

"I can't die now...not yet...so please...Forgive me for not managing to make these narrow walls of ours the paradise we'd all dreamt of..."

Uri bowed down until his forehead touched the long grass under my wide eyed stare.

~o~

A king with that much power, laying himself flat on the ground before someone like me?

I've had reason knocked out of me so many times before by the titans but...

More importantly, I felt something wavering in me at that moment as I gazed at the blood -his blood- on the knife still piercing his wrist.

I don't know what happened. I can't explain it and I have never met anyone who could. I told him I wanted to help with his 'paradise' in a daze and without knowing why myself. And Uri accepted with a knowing look as if he was the god himself and I, a creation of his who had just made the right choice.

In the next meeting, the guy who had ratted the Reiss' out was no longer there. And the one who he gave the information to became the Reiss family's lapdog.

That became my job from then on.

Sure. Call it shameful, go ahead. At least the Ackerman Family didn't have to go through hell anymore. It wasn't like we could go out and walk under the sun but at least we were lowering the number of enemies out there.

After joining Uri, I decided to find my sister. Last I heard, she had escaped to the Underground, working in a dirty brothel in some shady corner. When I finally found her house, it was already too late.

An emotionless brat on the verge of dying. It was all that she had left for me. I hadn't lost my soul to the point that I could just leave him there to die but I wasn't that great of a man to be able to raise him as my own.

There wasn't much I could teach gim but...a few knife moves, getting along with 'friends', some greetings and some more knife moves did it. He started to look more and more like Kuchel as the time went by and he slowly got better. It was as if she had left me a miniature version of herself, knowing she wasn't going to make it.

I taught him everything he needed to survive in that rotten place and if he wanted to go above one day...hell, it was his choise. But by the time he decided, he would have to go along with his choice by his own power. I wouldn't stay waiting after all.

~o~

"The Central Military Police, huh? So you guys are part of that."

The last part was a statement, not a question of mine as I gazed at Sanes in the corner of my eye.

"Sorry but I am gonna pass. Seen too many of my friends die in their hands..."

"Well, give it some thought Kenny. You will become a bodyguard who could even make the king follow your orders."

Those words didn't even click something in me. All my life, I had wanted to become stronger and stronger. Yet the kind of strenght that Sanes suggested...

"The power of a king is endless Kenny."

I answered without turning to look at him.

"Now, you really adore them don't you Sanes? "

He nodded briefly.

"Yes, and that is also why I am willing to do anything they make me do...Are you any different? Why are you content with staying below the king?"

The image of Uri on his knees and with his head bowed deeply, resting near his pierced wrist on the grass before me flashed in my mind. Why was I content with being his underling? Why had I even offered to help him that day? What was it that still kept wavering in my chest whenever I thought about Uri?

I sighed and lowered my eyes.

"Dunno...maybe it's because...he is the strongest out there?"

~o~

That hesistant answer had come out more as a question that day but frankly, it was the only real answer that I would ever manage to think of even years after that day.

That is the right answer for me. I believe that the strongest deserves to be at the top after all. All one needs is power. At least to not have a miserable death like Kuchel.

Strenght...it is the key to everything...yet it can only be gained in solitude.

That was also why I had decided to leave the brat alone after witnessing him beating up a man twice his size. He had the strenght he would need. I was no longer necessary. I couldn't let him get attached to me and become like Kuchel. He didn't need a parent. At least not a shitty one like me. He was strong enough anyway.

~o~

"I don't have much time left. Everyone knows that by now."

Uri said as he sat on a fallen tree gazing ahead. Both of faces were covered in wrinkles by then. We had all changed so much. Yet his eyes were the same as that first day...

...full of knowledge...

...godly.

"So even a monster like you can get old and die, huh?.. I am so disappointed with you-"

"You are wrong."

He cut me in mid sentence, still not looking at me.

"Once I've passed the power to Rod's children, I will live on in their memories."

I raised a brow at him eventhough I knew he couldn't see the gesture.

"What does that mean? Passing on your powers?"

He stayed silent for a long time. And I waited patiently because I knew that he would answer. He was just unsure how to explain it to a lowly being like myself, I thought.

"Kenny, the world will end in a future...not so far away. I...want to build a paradise for what little of the humanity that is left."

I couldn't help but snort quietly at that one.

"So you believe in violence now?"

Uri pouted like a small child as he always did when he got an answer that displeased him.

"If we are made to fight among each other and destroy one another...then who exactly can we befriend? Violence?"

I took a deep breath.

"Dunno...That day, if you hadn't got me with that giant ass arm of yours, I would have surely ripped your head off. But you prevented me from doing so. Now that's what truly becoming friends is."

I felt the corners of my mouth tilting upwards slightly and Uri finally let out a small chuckle.

"Yeah...an unavoidable truth...yet I still believe in the miracle."

~o~

I was never able to understand him till the very end but it was just he had said. The monster never died. It lived on in another. True to that, I had known that he was there the moment I looked into her eyes.

That girl, Rod's daughter, and the others had been going on about peace, love, friendship and that sort of shit.

Honestly, those words all sound the same to me no matter who it is that utteres them.

How is one even able to talk like that so easily in the first place?

Is it because they all have enough strenght to feel that way?

Are they all as strong as Uri?

No.

Even after his death, Uri resides at the top for me.

But...

...if one has the same amount of strenght Uri had, would they be able to feel and understand those things called love and friendship?

For example, if I had...

~o~

"I am Kenny Ackerman. They used to call me lame ass nicknames like 'Kenny the Ripper', appearantly because I have cut the throats of so many elite soldiers like yourselves that I got bored in the end."

I looked around the room once and saw that I had those brats' full attention.

"But so much has happened and now, I am here as your captain...so work with me guys."

I looked at their faces once again. They were still listening to me with nearly perfect poker faces, obviously trained to hide their emotions.

"I understand why you all have got those blank expressions. There's no way you guys will work with a killer like me who has no experience with the army-"

A girl's voice cut me.

"Irrelevant sir."

I looked at the direction of the voice. The blonde girl took one step towards me and turned her blue eyes at my face.

"It's been two years since the wall was destroyed. We have all turned on each other but is this really why we are here? This is how all the ones who have followed the rules ended up. So, once again, irrelevant sir."

When she stopped talking, I gave her one of my most amused smiles which my victims have always found creepy and indeed I saw a few of those highly trained soldiers flinching in the corner of my eye. I slowly went to stand directly in front of the girl.

"Don't worry, dear. It's not like we are an anti Survey Corps thing or something...most of it is just for show...just another way to make those pigs at the meeting give me what I need...it was pretty hard work to deal with them, you know?...I'm only here because of one thing...I know you will ask what for."

I turned around to face all of the others and raised my hands for emphasis. I could see that they didn't know what, to think of me. So I softened the smile on my face a little. I needed to make sure that they would follow me till the end.

"Well...I am here for a beautiful dream, of course...just like the rest of you!"

~o~

...if I had...enough strenght, would I be allowed to feel the way Uri did?

A power befitting a god.

For some reason unknown to me, those who got hold of it all turned into a bunch of goody-two-shoes.

I wonder if someone like me will too.

I want to know...

...how it feels...and how the view is from up there...

...I wonder...

...if scum like me can see what you saw back then...

Tell me, Uri...

~o~

"Kenny."

I open one eye slowly as I sit leaning against the trunk of a tree.

It is him.

He is looking down at me, his eyes emotionless as ever as he stands there like a shadow from twenty years ago.

"It's you..."

"Your comrades that have fought against as have all fallen...Are you the only one left?"

I close my eyes and lean my aching head back against the tree.

"...I guess."

My voice is hoarse with death looming over my ruined body while his is steady and perfectly stoic, matching with his eyes.

"C-captain..."

I hear a third hesistant voice but can not see the owner from where I sit.

"Return to the base, leave this to me."

The other soldier immediately starts to walk away, his footsteps slowly fading. So the brat who couldn't even hold a knife correctly in that first day is now ordering people around. I would certainly smile at that if I wasn't waiting for death there.

I hear him stepping closer to me.

"Serious burns and a lot of bleeding...there's no saving you now."

I already know that. Still, him being that blunt feels...like uncle, like nephew, I think to myself. He isn't all Kuchel after all.

I know that I am not going to make it. Still, I decide to play with him a little.

"You sure?"

I force my eyes open once again and I show him the small box with the serum in it.

"I took this from Rod's bag...appearantly taking one can...turn you into a titan."

I can see his eyes widening.

"Maybe I'll become a stupid one...dunno...but at least it could...keep me alive."

He isn't believing me, I can tell as we fall silent for a second.

"You probably had a better chance when you were less messed up...so why didn't you do it before?"

I swallow once.

"I wonder why...I gotta make sure I do it right...or else...I will turn out like him...some half baked dumbass..."

I am slowly stroking my hand on the serum bottle but both him and I know that I won't really use it. Strangely, I accept it so easily that I am going to die after all I have done just to survive and see the world from Uri's eyes.

Maybe it's because, I now know that I will never get to do it or maybe because that dream, the last thing left from Uri, slipped out of my fingers.

"There's no way you will sit here and wait for your death. Come on, don't you have a better excuse?"

"Yeah...I don't wanna die...and I wanted power...but..."

"...I see...I think I can finally understand why...why he did something like that..."

"...everyone I saw was the same..."

The men in the bars.

"...alcohol..."

Rod.

"...women..."

The wall cult.

"...or even pretending to be god..."

My old man.

"...family..."

Sanes.

"...the king..."

My squad.

"...dreams..."

Kuchel.

"...children..."

Me.

"...power..."

I close my eyes.

"They all had something they were drunk on...It was what kept them moving."

I suddenly remember Uri's face as he looked ahead at the meadow, deep in thought.

"Even he was like that..."

I say quietly. And Levi, again, doesn't understand anything.

I start to laugh. The cruel humor sense of this disgusting world has always been something I couldn't understand. Still, the games that the fate likes to play seems so funny all of a sudden.

I start to talk again between coughs.

"W-what about...you...being a hero?"

Everyone is the same. Levi should be no exception.

He puts his hand on my shoulder and leans down a little.

"Kenny! Tell me everything you know. Why didn't the previous king want the mankind to survive?"

I look at his still straight face. Surely, the change in his voice must be because he wants to have all answers before I let out my last breath.

"I...don't know. But that was why we Ackermans rebeled against the king."

I cough a few times as he draws his lips tightly together.

"I was told that I am also an Ackerman, is it true?...You... Who were you to my mother?"

Shit.

I start laughing once again. I realise only now just how I must have looked from Levi's percpective.

His mother, who works in a brothel, dies because of a disease she has caught. Then a man who he doesn't know but knows his mother appears out of nowhere and takes him in. Years later, he learns that he is the descendant of an extinct family and the only other living member of that family who is older than him is the very same man.

The brat thinks that I am his father.

I laugh some more at the irony. Didn't I abandon him out of fear that he would see some scum like me as a parent?

"I-Idiot...just her...big brother..."

I can see the disappointment in his eyes though it is as well masked as his all other feelings.

"Then why...why did you leave me?"

As unnoticable as it is, his voice has a new edge to it now. Is it sadness?

"I was...unfit...to be a parent..."

But maybe you needed one. Maybe you thought that I was the family you had left. When I went away, you hated everything because your father didn't want you anymore. Sorry brat.

I am sorry Levi.

I close my hand around the serum box and push it against his chest and again, he widens his eyes.

I didn't give him what he desired and needed the most.

He was only a child.

I could've managed. But I didn't even try. I was scared shitless. But what about him? Wasn't he scared too?

In the end,even as a small kid, he was stronger than I have ever been. He didn't end up like me eventhough he was all alone like me. I am...

...glad.

The sunlight is disappearing so fast. It was early evening just a few seconds ago.

But now I can't see anything behind Levi's head.

The shadows are growing closer.

"Kenny!"

His voice sounds so far away and it echoes in my ears.

I am shaking.

Or is Levi shaking me?

I am not sure.

"Kenny!"

That voice no longer sounds like his.

The darkness has swallowed him too.

I can only make out a few lighter shades in the darkness before me but I still don't close my eyes.

"Kenny..."

No. That voice, certainly, isn't his.

It's yours.

Uri.

"...kenny..."

You are whispering my name jıst as you used to. I can hear you, Uri.

It's total black now. But...

...maybe I will even see you...


End file.
